Galileo

 Dear Boo and Bubble,

We have just had a wonderful time together in the mountains, a summer ritual that I hope will continue for many years to come. When you arrived, it was with great fanfare over awards you received both at school and camp. It won't be until you have grandchildren that you will experience the pride Captain and I feel at your accomplishments. You are great kids.

I want to focus on Bubble's award for this post simply because of its nature and links to both general history and writings from Great Grandaddy Schaefer. It is the Galileo Award, described thusly: "Galileo Galilei was an Italian scientist who supported the idea that planets reolved around the sun. The Galileo Award goes to a student who always seems to have people "orbit" around them. His/her positivity and kindess always seems to draw people in. Congratulations to Bryant Yeargin."

What an honor, Bubble, to be so described as a person. I know...I know...you're blushing right now. One of the reasons you were chosen is because of your humility--ironically a major magnet in attracting others to you. You don't see yourself as anything extraordinary. 

I want to highlight something about the man for whom this award is named--Galileo Galilei. Most all of us are very familiar with his contribution to science, known as heliocentrism, with regards to the relationship of the sun to earth and other planets. However, it may not be so well known that this theoretical revelation put him at odds with the Catholic Church. The matter was investigated in 1615 by the Roman Inquisition which concluded that heliocentrism was heretical since it contradicted Holy Scripture. Galileo tried to defend his views academically but this just further alienated him from the Pope and the church. He was tried by the Inquisition and found suspect of heresy. In order to save himself, he recanted the theory but still had to spend the rest of his life under house arrest.

Not that it was any solace to Galileo, it took 350 years for the Catholic Church to itself recant the horrendous misappropriation of judgment. Pope John Paul asked for a reversal of the declaration of heresy and he was forgiven. 

Your great grandaddy Schaefer wrote of this in one of his editorials for The Greenville News years ago. I thought it would be fun to share his words with you now.

Grandeur, Laws, Makeup of Universe Awesome

By Schaefer Kendrick

The Greenville News, Sunday, October 4, 1992

 

There is one argument a lawyer won hands down (whatever “hands down” means). He, a doctor, and an engineer were arguing about whose profession is the oldest. The doctor claimed his was the oldest citing the first operation by The Great Surgeon creating Eve out of the rib of Adam. The engineer said he had that beat, citing the first great engineering feat by the Great Engineer creating order out of chaos. The lawyer won the argument by asking the simple question: “Who do you think created chaos?”

The longer I live the more my awe is struck by the grandeur, the laws and the makeup of the universe.

We take it all for granted, but the sun does always rise in the east and always sets in the west. Gravity doesn’t work on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. It works every day, 24 hours a day. The seasons find order in their regularity. The winds seem capricious but when studied they reveal a purpose and a plan and a consistency. The moon makes its calendar by manipulating the oceans. Water refuses to run uphill. Flowers bloom in a riot of colors the human hand cannot emulate.

Two weeks ago, I was standing on the beach at Pawleys Island, SC. The sun was visibly pumping up moisture out of that vast body of water known as the Atlantic Ocean, creating clouds for the wind to push west in search of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Finding that great range, the clouds would then, drop by drop, renew the flora and fauna and in the process replenish the creeks, watersheds and rivers, the water then draining back to the ocean from whence it had come in a process of recycling for ages past and for ages to come.

Just yesterday, I picked up an acorn under the shade of a giant oak tree and pondered how could the sun, rain and soil transform this seed, which I was holding in my hand, into a tree that could hold a hundred of me in its limbs?

Then this morning I looked up at a cloudless sky at infinity. The infinity that reaches beyond the human eye, beyond the telescope, beyond the spaceship, beyond the imagination and even beyond itself.

And last night I finished reading a biography of Galileo Galilei, the genius who helped Copernicus and Newton turn the concept of the universe inside out and upside down. As I turned out my reading lamp, I issued a prayer of thanksgiving that I live in a country where the mind can explore the universe and report its findings, whatever they may be, whether they be true or false, without the fear of being tried for the crime of heresy by The Inquisition and receiving a sentence of life imprisonment, as was the fare of Galileo. The sentence was later modified and some 350 years after his trial, Galileo was officially forgiven by the Catholic Church; Pope John Paul II formally asked a reversal of the Church’s decision against the great scientist. In the following year, the Vatican declared Galileo had been absolutely right to say that the earth revolved around the sun, and announced his heresy would be reexamined. (Galileo and the Birth of Modern Science by Martin Suggett)

This is the adjudicated heretic who wrote: “The sun, with all of its planets moving around it, can ripen the smallest bunch of grapes, as if it had nothing else to do. Why, then, would I doubt His power?”

 Amen!